Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) is located 18 miles Northwest of Downtown Chicago, within the city of Chicago in the state of Illinois. It is American Airlines’ gateway to the Midwest, and it provides connections within the Midwest, North/South, and East/West traffic flows. It is currently American Airlines’ (AA) 4th largest hub, using data between April 2024 and April 2025. In the article below, we will look at the ins and outs of American’s Chicago hub from both its local dynamics to the need it fulfills for American itself.
About Chicago
As of the 2023 demographic numbers provided by data.census.gov, the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area has 1,748,189 foreign-born residents. This makes it the 5th largest metropolitan area for foreign-born residents. Chicago’s largest immigrant groups by country are Mexico, India, Poland, the Philippines, and China. The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area decreased in population by -176,873 between 2018 and 2023, which represented a 1.9% population decline.
As of the end of 2023, the Chicago metropolitan area had a GDP of $725.5 billion, which represented 3.8% growth between 2021 and 2023.
About American's Hub at ORD
- Population within 100 KM of ORD: 10.73 million
- Total passenger count at ORD between April 2024 and April 2025: 77,124,648
- Total passengers carried by American and its regional subsidiaries: 23,269,103
- Total passenger count in the Chicago Metro Area between April 2024 and April 2025: 98,301,633
- Percentage of traffic at ORD carried by AA: 30.2%
- Percentage of traffic at ORD carried by AA for all airports in the Chicago Metro area: 23.7%
Destinations Served...
As of April 2025, AA serves 124 domestic and 29 international destinations. Of those, 104 domestic and 9 international destinations are served year-round, with at least four flights per week.
Americans’ Overall Load Factor at ORD was 84.62% between April 2024 and April 2025. The highest LF routes from ORD on AA were (must have at least 36 yearly departures):
First the Highest...
- Cancun (CUN): 95.25%
- Punta Cana (PUJ): 93.99%
- Athens (ATH): 93.68%
- San Juan (SJU): 92.65%
- Harrisburg (MDT): 92.25%
- Vancouver (YVR): 91.46%
- Richmond (RIC): 91.46%
- Calgary (YYC): 91.45%
- Montego Bay (MBJ): 91.35%
- San Jose del Cabo (SJD): 91.21%
...and the Lowest.
- Columbia, MO (COU): 73.08%
- Lansing (LAN): 72.70%
- Rochester, MN (RST): 71.72%
- LaCrosse, WI (LSE): 70.78%
- Detroit (DTW): 70.73%
- Hayden (HDN): 69.49%
- Bloomingtom, IL (BMI): 68.63%
- Evansville (EVV): 63.20%
- Springfield (SPI): 58.57%
- Waterloo, IA (ALO): 38.14%
Connectivity
On average, between April 2024 and April 2025, 14,091 passengers connect at ORD on AA daily each way. Of those, 12,730 were making purely domestic connections, and 1,361 were making connections with an international component. These figures mostly represent American Airlines and its marketed flights, but also those that fly into ORD on another carrier to connect to American.
Fleet Breakdown at AA's ORD Hub
In April 2025, American averaged 387 departures a day from its ORD hub. Of these, 155 were mainline flights operated by American itself, and 232 were regional flights operated by American’s regional partners. This makes a 40.1% Mainline operation.
Chicago as an O&D Market for American
On average, between April 2024 and April 2025, American flies 17,150 daily O&D passengers from ORD daily, non-directionally averaged between April 2024 and April 2025 (PDEW).
- Of the 17,150 total O&D passengers, 15,172 passengers carried by AA to/from ORD are domestic O&D.
- Domestic O&D is down by 3,156 PDEW or 20.8% since 2019.
- Below are the largest domestic O&D markets carried by AA to/from ORD.
Domestic O&D to/from ORD by AA Hub...
- Dallas (DFW): 886
- Los Angeles (LAX): 752
- Phoenix (PHX): 718
- Miami (MIA): 682
- Philadelphia (PHL): 673
- Charlotte (CLT): 551
- Washington, DC (DCA): 472
- New York City (JFK): 167
...and by non-AA Hub.
- New York City (LGA): 770
- Boston (BOS): 531
- Orlando (MCO): 452
- Las Vegas (LAS): 393
- Newark (EWR): 319
- Tampa (TPA): 313
- San Francisco (SFO): 273
- Austin (AUS): 267
- Raleigh (RDU): 262
- Santa Ana (SNA): 248
- San Diego (SAN): 235
- Fort Myers (RSW): 230
- Denver (DEN): 215
- West Palm Beach (PBI): 230
- Houston (IAH): 173
- Nashville (BNA): 172
- Atlanta (ATL): 159
- Kansas City (MCI): 142
- San Antonio (SAT): 136
- AA carries 1,978 international O&D passengers on average, non-directional, daily to/from ORD.
- This is up by 270 PDEW or 13.7% since 2019.
- Below are the largest international O&D markets to/from ORD by passengers carried by AA.
Top International Leisure Destinations by O&D...
- Cancun (CUN): 230
- San Jose del Cabo (SJD): 123
- Punta Cana (PUJ): 118
- Montego Bay (MBJ): 105
- Puerto Vallarta (PVR): 74
....and top non-Leisure based International Destinations.
- London (LHR): 225
- Toronto (YYZ): 94
- Rome (FCO): 53
- Dublin (DUB): 47
- Barcelona (BCN): 44
- Athens (ATH): 38
- Paris (CDG): 32
- Calgary (YYC): 30
- Venice (VCE): 25
Largest Markets Unserved by AA at ORD: Domestic
- Washington, DC (IAD): 347
- Dallas (DAL): 236
- Kahului-Maui (OGG): 114
- Reno (RNO): 97
- San Jose (SJC): 97
Largest Markets Unserved by AA at ORD: International
- Guadalajara (GDL): 486
- Amsterdam (AMS): 185
- Frankfurt (FRA): 182
- Delhi (DEL): 158
- Monterrey (MTY): 157
The Present and Future of AA's Hub at ORD: what is and what is possible.
Beyond O&D, ORD’s primary purpose is to serve as a connecting point between East/West traffic flows within the US, with a secondary purpose of connecting traffic to LHR and summer seasonal destinations in Europe. Geographically, very few other cities are blessed with the geography that Chicago has. It is one of the largest logistical hubs in the world. Theoretically, ORD should be a winner for AA, but the situation at ORD is a complicated one. What does this mean for the hub?
The Elephant in the room: competing with United (UA) in their hometown.
If you are a resident of Chicago, what would make you pick AA over UA? As a former resident of Chicago, I rarely considered AA for my travel needs. They have fewer flights, fewer destinations, a higher percentage of regional equipment, and they are less crucial to the local economy in Chicago. That last point goes both ways, as AA’s relationship with its ORD hub has been less stable than UA’s. But is this view short-sighted? Does AA differentiate itself enough to be a strong competitor in the Chicago market? Truthfully, the answer is both yes and no.
Why would a Chicago flyer choose AA?
The biggest issue AA has at ORD is its lack of a stable schedule. Their route network at ORD has risen and fallen more drastically relative to their other hubs. In the graph below, we can see that the post-pandemic years were unstable for AA’s ORD hub.
AA has put more resources into its other hubs during this time period, allowing its other hubs to have a more stable offering year to year. There were personalities and strategies involved regarding corporate travel in the post-pandemic world. AA bet heavily that corporate travel would not be a driving force in the future, and as such, hubs like ORD could be minimized in favor of Dallas (DFW) and Charlotte (CLT). This ended up being a poor bet on AA’s part, and their ORD hub paid the price for some of this.
This is in contrast to UA’s hub at ORD, which has had continuous growth in both seat count and destination count in this same time period.
The difference is more stark with international destinations
American had 1,071,507 international seats offered between May 2024 and May 2025. By contrast, United offered 2,579,749. When factoring in American’s joint venture partner airlines, it would add 443,642 seats in the same time period. United’s would add 1,001,537 seats if JV partners were factored in.
How does AA fit into Chicago? What role does it play in the market?
Looking at the data above, it might be hard to see where AA fits into the mix. However, Chicago is a massive market. ORD is the 4th largest origin and destination (O&D) airport in the US, with around 65,117 passengers daily each way (PDEW). Even if we subtract the 26,373 United has at ORD, that is only 40.5% of the market share. That is a very large sum for such a large market, but it also means that there is room for more than one airline to be a significant player in the Chicago market.
AA is, more than likely, not going to cover the Chicago market the way UA does. Still, that might not matter depending on the type of traveler.
Domestically, AA provides a comparable offering to UA at ORD.
American offers service to 104 domestic destinations from ORD multiple times a week on a year-round basis, while United serves 133. The gap may seem large, but the main difference between the two is the number of cities UA serves in the Mountain West and the West Coast. AA still serves the major O&D markets from ORD in those regions. UA and AA also have very similar load factors in their domestic networks (between 84-85%). Of Chicago’s top 90 domestic O&D destinations, there are only two that AA does not serve from ORD (DAL and SJC), and only one that UA does not serve (DAL). ORD’s top 90 domestic destinations account for 87.9% of its total domestic O&D.
Internationally, what AA offers at ORD is paltry relative to UA, but AA has carved out a niche market in the Summer season.
With its joint ventures with British Airways (BA) and Iberia (IB), AA does carry more traffic between ORD and the United Kingdom and Spain. AA also carries more traffic between ORD and Greece. However, that is where AA’s dominance in ORD’s international market ends. As shown in the graphs in this article, UA not only serves a larger number of international destinations from ORD but also carries many more passengers on international routes from ORD compared to AA.
However, AA is capitalizing on its hub at ORD in a unique way: summer seasonal flights to European destinations. While AA only flies to one destination in Europe year-round from ORD, it flies to a total of eight in the summer. While data for 2025 is not available at the time of writing this article, we can refer to data from 2024.
We can see from the data that only Paris (CDG) has an O&D disadvantage relative to AA on these routes. I would chalk this up to there being a business component to ORD-CDG and UA flying the route year-round.
What is reassuring for AA is that it is keeping up with UA on its summer-seasonal portfolio from ORD. This shows there is definitely a niche for AA to fill during the summer at ORD.
It does bear saying that this is not going to appeal to an ORD business traveler who travels frequently internationally outside London (LHR) or perhaps Madrid (MAD) and Tokyo (TYO) via their JV partners, and even then, UA offers options to LHR and TYO. United simply offers much more for the international business traveler at ORD.
So, what is the profile of an AA frequent flyer at ORD?
This, of course, is a generalization, but here are some travel patterns they may possess:
- Domestic heavy travel patterns. More so than an average traveler.
- Those who take vacations to Europe in the summer, but might not otherwise travel long-haul internationally.
- Those who travel frequently not only to AA hubs but also to stations where AA is significantly larger than UA (AUS, STL, RDU, etc).
What are the opportunities for AA at ORD?
If we’re being honest, for AA to win the international business market out of ORD, they would have to invest more resources in the hub than they are probably willing to. But we see from the data that the market is large enough that they don’t have to be the dominant carrier at ORD to be a significant force in the market. They control nearly a quarter of the total air market in Chicagoland, which is in itself huge.
Other factors at play have not been resolved yet. These include a gate dispute between AA and UA at ORD, where UA is poised to be the victor. But as the issue has not been resolved, we cannot comment on it just yet.
So where does AA go from here?
Since awakening from their failed “corporate travel will collapse” based strategy, they have been on the right track: build the domestic network and offer significant options to that portion of the ORD market. In addition, they have built a very strong summer seasonal route network for which ORD does an excellent job funneling traffic. Where AA goes from here is simply to stay the course they are on. I don’t look for any large expansions, but I do look for more frequencies and more mainline equipment on domestic routes, as well as the exploration of new opportunities in Europe for peak summer travel.
AA is showing you don’t have to be number one in a massive market like Chicago to have a significant impact.